[OFFICIAL]Bitfinex.com first Bitcoin P2P lending platform for leverage trading

[TheQuin]

"Our reserve account is regularly audited"    by whom? I didn't see a genuine audit company (not a shit so called company related with Bitfinex) showing the audit report.

By accountancy firm Friedman LLP. http://www.friedmanllp.com/

In this case specifically, Tether claims that they are regularly audited, so where can we find the audit reports? Are they publicly audited since otherwise these audits (or rather claims) are pretty much inconsequential

From this report in The Financial Times:

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/10/02/2194319/tethers-transparency-update-is-out/

As it stands, the release confirms that the Tethers in circulation are more than adequately capitalised by dollar accounts.

[1714489414]

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[1714489414]

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[mayax]

in response to that so called audit, please read and THINK with YOUR brain:


https://medium.com/@bitfinexed/the-mystery-of-the-bitfinex-tether-bank-and-why-this-is-suspicious-a8a6407a1241    


Bitfinex is a money launderer, a fraudulent company, an illegal money transmitter without any financial license ; in short, a criminal company.

plain simple .

[TheQuin]

please read and THINK with YOUR brain:

I do and that is why I tend to put far more weight upon an article in the Financial Times, one of the most respected journals in existence, than I do on some post on Medium by someone who can't even use their real name. I also used my brain in doing a bit of research into Freidman LLP. It's a well-respected New York accountancy firm founded in 1924 and is not likely to risk its reputation by vouching for any shady business.

Now you can scream scam as long and loud as you like but you haven't provided a single piece of evidence.

[Samarkand]

...

And what does mean?

For us, simple traders at Bitfinex? What are your doubts more specifically? Do you mean that they create Tethers out of thin air? How are they supposed to be created and on which basis? As far as I understand it, the amount of Tether tokens in circulation should match the amount of dollars injected into the system, right? In other words, the whole purpose of this operation is to create a parallel quasi-banking system which would allow people to buy cryptocurrencies with real dollars bypassing banks (most likely, American banks)

There are various possibilities:
1. Tethers are created out of thin air without any backing whatsoever
2. Tethers are partly legitimately backed by real money and another part of the outstanding Tethers is unbacked = Tether is running a fractional reserve (more likely in my opinion)
3. Tethers are completely backed but the source of the funds is problematic
(e.g. https://twitter.com/btcecom/status/853142083527245824?lang=de)
We all know what happened to BTC-E and if large part of these funds ended up at Tether this could indicate a high possibility of involvement of various
US government agencies
4. Tether is completely legit and all funds are completely backed by real money (this is also a possibility, but I view the whole Tether situation with increasing scepticism)

TheQuin is right, there were several audits. However, these contain various flaws or loopholes. One user on twitter raised the possibility that
some entity simply provided the necessary money for the duration of the audit (some kind of overnight credit), which doesn´t prove at all
that the funds are actually stored in Tether´s bank accounts at other times.
Besides, it is possible that they use various corporate entities without informing the banks of the true purpose of what they are doing, which
would be mispresenting the nature of your business.

[TheQuin]

TheQuin is right, there were several audits. However, these contain various flaws or loopholes. One user on twitter raised the possibility

This is the problem with conspiracy theories, they are just that, theories that someone thought up. They may be hard to disprove and probably sound quite reasonable or possible, but there is no evidence to support them and they can usually be ruled out as being extremely unlikely.

that some entity simply provided the necessary money for the duration of the audit (some kind of overnight credit), which doesn´t prove at all that the funds are actually stored in Tether´s bank accounts at other times.

There is no way that a legitimate accountancy firm would be fooled by that. They would need confirmation and records, directly from the banks, for several months or even years of banking transaction records before they were comfortable signing it off.

Besides, it is possible that they use various corporate entities without informing the banks of the true purpose of what they are doing, which would be mispresenting the nature of your business.

Their banks have access to Google and would be negligent beyond belief if they didn't know what Tether was even before Freidman LLP approached them to do an audit. The banks fully understand the true purpose of the business.

[Samarkand]

...

This is the problem with conspiracy theories, they are just that, theories that someone thought up. They may be hard to disprove and probably sound quite reasonable or possible, but there is no evidence to support them and they can usually be ruled out as being extremely unlikely.

...

There is no way that a legitimate accountancy firm would be fooled by that. They would need confirmation and records, directly from the banks, for several months or even years of banking transaction records before they were comfortable signing it off.

...


Their banks have access to Google and would be negligent beyond belief if they didn't know what Tether was even before Freidman LLP approached them to do an audit. The banks fully understand the true purpose of the business.

I concede that a random user on Twitter may not be the most accurate source.

Regarding the bolded claim:
Friedman LLP explicitly states in the audit that they didn´t even review the terms of the banking relationships at all!

FLLP did not review the specific terms of the clients account agreements with the banks.

Have you read the actual audit? They didn´t review banking statements that go back years or even months. They just took a look
at the balances as of 15th September, 2017.

If anyone wants to take a further look:
https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Final-Tether-Consulting-Report-9-15-17_Redacted.pdf

[TheQuin]

Have you read the actual audit? They didn´t review banking statements that go back years or even months. They just took a look at the balances as of 15th September, 2017.

They do say they looked at the balances but they also say this:

FLLP traced the cash balance on trial balance and bank statement for each bank account and inquired of Client as to any reconciling items.

That means they did indeed get the bank statements from the bank and then asked Tether to explain every transaction. Granted it doesn't say how far back they went.

Friedman LLP explicitly states in the audit that they didn´t even review the terms of the banking relationships at all!

FLLP did not review the specific terms of the clients account agreements with the banks.

They were auditing whether the money existed, that's just a disclaimer stating what other things they didn't do.

[NiceSoft12]

Someone said unverified accounts in the USA can still use Bitfinex for as long as they want, is there any truth to this?

[TheQuin]

Someone said unverified accounts in the USA can still use Bitfinex for as long as they want, is there any truth to this?

I don't know who the source of this information is or where they got it from but there is no official statement from Bitfinex to that effect. I can't really see Bitfinex spending any time trying to track down and ban unverified USA accounts as it is not really in their interest to do so. The reason they made the decision to close those accounts is to protect themselves from any possible legal action. If they can show that they made "reasonable" attempts to stop customers from the USA by asking them to leave that would be enough legally in my opinion.

[Sukrim]

Someone said unverified accounts in the USA can still use Bitfinex for as long as they want, is there any truth to this?

Sounds like a great way to get your funds frozen sooner or later.

[Samarkand]

...
They were auditing whether the money existed, that's just a disclaimer stating what other things they didn't do.

It is entirely possible that the money actually exists. Nonetheless, there are various possibilities that could cause huge disruptions
for the cryptocurrency markets even if the outstanding supply of Tether is actually 100 % backed. I have mentioned a few of these
a few posts back in this thread (e.g. the possible involvement of BTC-E funds, the misrepresentation of the business nature
to the banks and the local regulatory bodies...).

Interestingly, BTC is flirting with another ATH at the moment.

This would be great news if it weren´t for the fact that BTC is surging after Tether released another 50M $ in the last 24 hours:
http://omniexplorer.info/lookupadd.aspx?address=3MbYQMMmSkC3AgWkj9FMo5LsPTW1zBTwXL

Another thing that is increasing my scepticism is the fact that the cryptocurrency media entities (e.g. Coindesk) are very vocal
about people like Novogratz investing 10-20M $ into cryptocurrencies (not even all of it is going into BTC, parts of it are
flowing into ETH) and yet are completely quiet regarding the mysterious creation of 175M $ of Tether just in the last 2 weeks.

[TheQuin]

It is entirely possible that the money actually exists.

The money does exist, it has been audited by a reputable accountancy firm.

Nonetheless, there are various possibilities tinfoil hat conspiracy theories

Fixed that for you.

that could cause huge disruptions for the cryptocurrency markets even if the outstanding supply of Tether is actually 100 % backed. I have mentioned a few of these a few posts back in this thread (e.g. the possible involvement of BTC-E funds, the misrepresentation of the business nature to the banks and the local regulatory bodies...).

There is not one shred of evidence to support any of this. It is just the ramblings of bloggers and other weirdos that have nothing better to do with their time.

Interestingly, BTC is flirting with another ATH at the moment.

That news from the CME about the futures contract sure has been good.

This would be great news if it weren´t for the fact that BTC is surging after Tether released another 50M $ in the last 24 hours:
http://omniexplorer.info/lookupadd.aspx?address=3MbYQMMmSkC3AgWkj9FMo5LsPTW1zBTwXL

More institutional money flowing into crypto, more great news.

Another thing that is increasing my scepticism is the fact that the cryptocurrency media entities (e.g. Coindesk) are very vocal about people like Novogratz investing 10-20M $ into cryptocurrencies (not even all of it is going into BTC, parts of it are flowing into ETH) and yet are completely quiet regarding the mysterious creation of 175M $ of Tether just in the last 2 weeks.

They would be quiet because it is no mystery and not a story.

[Samarkand]

...

More institutional money flowing into crypto, more great news.

...

They would be quiet because it is no mystery and not a story.

Aren´t these statements of you contradictory? If this would be indeed institutional money that is flowing into BTC using
Tether as an intermediary step (why would anyone do that instead of buying BTC directly?) the media entities
like Coindesk would be all over it!

Just look at articles like this:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/billionaire-bull-novogratz-big-money-is-coming-to-bitcoin-real-soon/

During bitcoin’s recent fall in value, which saw it drop to $5,500, Novogratz is reported to have bought $15 million to $20 million worth of the digital currency.

A 15-20 million investment is worth an article at cryptocurrency media outlets and even mainstream business media like Reuters and hundreds of
millions of $ are not? If this would be indeed legit institutional money flowing into Bitcoin using Tether these media sites would be covering it extensively.

If you were an institutional investor you surely wouldn´t want unnecessary counterparty risks and probably would be going with
something like this:
https://zertifikate.vontobel.com/DE/Produkt/DE000VL3TBC7

A certificate that tracks the Bitcoin price issued by a well-known Swiss Bank. Compare that to a sketchy entity that is directly involved with the biggest
exchange and that is using opaque terms for a fiat-backed token. Most institutional investors have extremely strict guidelines on how they are allowed to invest and
buying fiat-backed digital tokens is surely not covered by that.

I´m a long-term believer in Bitcoin, but this whole Tether situation will damage the cryptocurrency markets for years. I know that correlation doesn´t imply
causation, but the events of 2017 are simply too suspicious.

If Tether would be completely legit, why would they scrap the pictures and biographies of the founders from the website? A few months ago
you could directly see Phil Potter (Bitfinex) and Stuart Hoegner (the main Bitfinex lawyer) right on the Tether website. They are obviously trying
to hide their involvement.

I don´t agree with everything that this @bitfinexed dude posts on Twitter, but some of his observations are definitely very suspicious.

[TheQuin]

Aren´t these statements of you contradictory?

No.

If this would be indeed institutional money that is flowing into BTC using Tether as an intermediary step (why would anyone do that instead of buying BTC directly?)

They are buying Tether to get large quantities of USD into Bitfinex and other exchanges that don't take wire transfers to the buy crypto. What do you want them to do, use localbitcoins?

the media entities like Coindesk would be all over it!

They would be if they knew who the investors were, but without a name, there isn't a story. That's just how media works.

Just look at articles like this:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/billionaire-bull-novogratz-big-money-is-coming-to-bitcoin-real-soon/

During bitcoin’s recent fall in value, which saw it drop to $5,500, Novogratz is reported to have bought $15 million to $20 million worth of the digital currency.

A 15-20 million investment is worth an article at cryptocurrency media outlets and even mainstream business media like Reuters and hundreds of millions of $ are not? If this would be indeed legit institutional money flowing into Bitcoin using Tether these media sites would be covering it extensively.

Yup, when they had a name they published a story when they don't there is nothing to write.

If you were an institutional investor you surely wouldn´t want unnecessary counterparty risks and probably would be going with something like this:
https://zertifikate.vontobel.com/DE/Produkt/DE000VL3TBC7

I don't speak German.

A certificate that tracks the Bitcoin price issued by a well-known Swiss Bank.

How much liquidity does it have?

Compare that to a sketchy entity that is directly involved with the biggest exchange and that is using opaque terms for a fiat-backed token.

It's only sketchy in the eyes of a few nutters on the internet.

Most institutional investors have extremely strict guidelines on how they are allowed to invest and

Yes. Hedge funds have much more freedom than many others.

buying fiat-backed digital tokens is surely not covered by that.

Do you have a source for that assumption?

I´m a long-term believer in Bitcoin, but this whole Tether situation will damage the cryptocurrency markets for years. I know that correlation doesn´t imply causation, but the events of 2017 are simply too suspicious.

No, the damage is being done here by the unfounded allegations that make the whole community look shady.

If Tether would be completely legit, why would they scrap the pictures and biographies of the founders from the website? A few months ago you could directly see Phil Potter (Bitfinex) and Stuart Hoegner (the main Bitfinex lawyer) right on the Tether website. They are obviously trying to hide their involvement.

You really have to go some to make anything from that. Everyone already knows who they are, reorganizing a website doesn't change anything.

I don´t agree with everything that this @bitfinexed dude posts on twitter, but some of his observations are definitely very suspicious.

Unfortunately for you, far too many of his theories have lead you to believe some complete nonesense.

[Samarkand]

...

It's only sketchy in the eyes of a few nutters on the internet.

...

From the Tether website:

Since April 18, 2017, all incoming international wires to Tether have been blocked and refused by our Taiwanese banks.  As such, we do not expect the supply of tethers to increase substantially until these constraints have been lifted.

This is directly from a Tether announcement. They lost their banking services in Taiwan around the same time that Bitfinex was dropped by Wells Fargo.
What an interesting coincidence!

What happened since this announcement? Tether supply was at 60M $ at the time of the announcement. This implies that although Tether did "not expect the supply of tethers to increase
substantially" the supply has actually more than increased by an order of magnitude. At the moment the supply is at 675M $ (30M $ of this amount have been created
since my last post yesterday). This is in spite of the fact that they haven´t been able to obtain new banking relationships otherwise they would have announced it. The only
other explanation is that they don´t want to announce where they are banking, because the banks and the regulatory entities would discover the true nature of Tether´s business.

I agree that this is partly based on conjecture and I may very well be one of the "few nutters on the internet". However, this is simply too suspicious.
Tether and Bitfinex lose their banking relationships around the same time. In spite of these events Tether supply increases by more than 10x and BTC rises several
hundred % for the year. Active Margin Funding at BFX increases after every Tether issuance and dips in the BTC price always are followed by a new issuance of Tethers.

Come on @TheQuin, you can call me a conspiracy theorist all day, but some of these events and observations are simply too suspicious.

[Timetwister]

...

It's only sketchy in the eyes of a few nutters on the internet.

...

From the Tether website:

Since April 18, 2017, all incoming international wires to Tether have been blocked and refused by our Taiwanese banks.  As such, we do not expect the supply of tethers to increase substantially until these constraints have been lifted.

This is directly from a Tether announcement. They lost their banking services in Taiwan around the same time that Bitfinex was dropped by Wells Fargo.
What an interesting coincidence!

What happened since this announcement? Tether supply was at 60M $ at the time of the announcement. This implies that although Tether did "not expect the supply of tethers to increase
substantially" the supply has actually more than increased by an order of magnitude. At the moment the supply is at 675M $ (30M $ of this amount have been created
since my last post yesterday). This is in spite of the fact that they haven´t been able to obtain new banking relationships otherwise they would have announced it. The only
other explanation is that they don´t want to announce where they are banking, because the banks and the regulatory entities would discover the true nature of Tether´s business.

I agree that this is partly based on conjecture and I may very well be one of the "few nutters on the internet". However, this is simply too suspicious.
Tether and Bitfinex lose their banking relationships around the same time. In spite of these events Tether supply increases by more than 10x and BTC rises several
hundred % for the year. Active Margin Funding at BFX increases after every Tether issuance and dips in the BTC price always are followed by a new issuance of Tethers.

Come on @TheQuin, you can call me a conspiracy theorist all day, but some of these events and observations are simply too suspicious.

How do you know they simply aren't using another bank?

[mayax]

...

It's only sketchy in the eyes of a few nutters on the internet.

...

From the Tether website:

Since April 18, 2017, all incoming international wires to Tether have been blocked and refused by our Taiwanese banks.  As such, we do not expect the supply of tethers to increase substantially until these constraints have been lifted.

This is directly from a Tether announcement. They lost their banking services in Taiwan around the same time that Bitfinex was dropped by Wells Fargo.
What an interesting coincidence!

What happened since this announcement? Tether supply was at 60M $ at the time of the announcement. This implies that although Tether did "not expect the supply of tethers to increase
substantially" the supply has actually more than increased by an order of magnitude. At the moment the supply is at 675M $ (30M $ of this amount have been created
since my last post yesterday). This is in spite of the fact that they haven´t been able to obtain new banking relationships otherwise they would have announced it. The only
other explanation is that they don´t want to announce where they are banking, because the banks and the regulatory entities would discover the true nature of Tether´s business.

I agree that this is partly based on conjecture and I may very well be one of the "few nutters on the internet". However, this is simply too suspicious.
Tether and Bitfinex lose their banking relationships around the same time. In spite of these events Tether supply increases by more than 10x and BTC rises several
hundred % for the year. Active Margin Funding at BFX increases after every Tether issuance and dips in the BTC price always are followed by a new issuance of Tethers.

Come on @TheQuin, you can call me a conspiracy theorist all day, but some of these events and observations are simply too suspicious.

How do you know they simply aren't using another bank?

what genuine company would hide a banking relationship? yes, a criminal organisation would do that.they have no financial license(why?)  for any of their shit companies, they are doing many frauds and money laundering.  Bitfinex gang is running a criminal organisation.

[Timetwister]

...

It's only sketchy in the eyes of a few nutters on the internet.

...

From the Tether website:

Since April 18, 2017, all incoming international wires to Tether have been blocked and refused by our Taiwanese banks.  As such, we do not expect the supply of tethers to increase substantially until these constraints have been lifted.

This is directly from a Tether announcement. They lost their banking services in Taiwan around the same time that Bitfinex was dropped by Wells Fargo.
What an interesting coincidence!

What happened since this announcement? Tether supply was at 60M $ at the time of the announcement. This implies that although Tether did "not expect the supply of tethers to increase
substantially" the supply has actually more than increased by an order of magnitude. At the moment the supply is at 675M $ (30M $ of this amount have been created
since my last post yesterday). This is in spite of the fact that they haven´t been able to obtain new banking relationships otherwise they would have announced it. The only
other explanation is that they don´t want to announce where they are banking, because the banks and the regulatory entities would discover the true nature of Tether´s business.

I agree that this is partly based on conjecture and I may very well be one of the "few nutters on the internet". However, this is simply too suspicious.
Tether and Bitfinex lose their banking relationships around the same time. In spite of these events Tether supply increases by more than 10x and BTC rises several
hundred % for the year. Active Margin Funding at BFX increases after every Tether issuance and dips in the BTC price always are followed by a new issuance of Tethers.

Come on @TheQuin, you can call me a conspiracy theorist all day, but some of these events and observations are simply too suspicious.

How do you know they simply aren't using another bank?

what genuine company would hide a banking relationship? yes, a criminal organisation would do that.they have no financial license(why?)  for any of their shit companies, they are doing many frauds and money laundering.  Bitfinex gang is running a criminal organisation.

Why? Because most governments make it too complicated. I don't care from where they operate as long as they are honest.

[mayax]

...

It's only sketchy in the eyes of a few nutters on the internet.

...

From the Tether website:

Since April 18, 2017, all incoming international wires to Tether have been blocked and refused by our Taiwanese banks.  As such, we do not expect the supply of tethers to increase substantially until these constraints have been lifted.

This is directly from a Tether announcement. They lost their banking services in Taiwan around the same time that Bitfinex was dropped by Wells Fargo.
What an interesting coincidence!

What happened since this announcement? Tether supply was at 60M $ at the time of the announcement. This implies that although Tether did "not expect the supply of tethers to increase
substantially" the supply has actually more than increased by an order of magnitude. At the moment the supply is at 675M $ (30M $ of this amount have been created
since my last post yesterday). This is in spite of the fact that they haven´t been able to obtain new banking relationships otherwise they would have announced it. The only
other explanation is that they don´t want to announce where they are banking, because the banks and the regulatory entities would discover the true nature of Tether´s business.

I agree that this is partly based on conjecture and I may very well be one of the "few nutters on the internet". However, this is simply too suspicious.
Tether and Bitfinex lose their banking relationships around the same time. In spite of these events Tether supply increases by more than 10x and BTC rises several
hundred % for the year. Active Margin Funding at BFX increases after every Tether issuance and dips in the BTC price always are followed by a new issuance of Tethers.

Come on @TheQuin, you can call me a conspiracy theorist all day, but some of these events and observations are simply too suspicious.

How do you know they simply aren't using another bank?

what genuine company would hide a banking relationship? yes, a criminal organisation would do that.they have no financial license(why?)  for any of their shit companies, they are doing many frauds and money laundering.  Bitfinex gang is running a criminal organisation.

Why? Because most governments make it too complicated. I don't care from where they operate as long as they are honest.

it is not about from where they operate.

Coinbase, Gemini, ITbit, Bitstamp  or any license forex company doesn't make a secret(hide) from their bank accounts. Why?

[TheQuin]

I agree that this is partly based on conjecture and I may very well be one of the "few nutters on the internet". However, this is simply too suspicious.

I certainly don’t mean to be rude in calling you a nutter, that’s just a turn of phrase, but you do follow all the patterns of a conspiracy theorist.

From my first reply to you:

This is the problem with conspiracy theories, they are just that, theories that someone thought up. They may be hard to disprove and probably sound quite reasonable or possible, but there is no evidence to support them and they can usually be ruled out as being extremely unlikely.

So, you read from some Twitter account that the auditors only looked at the balances and not the full bank statements so therefore they may have just wired the money in overnight to fool them. You asked me if I had read the audit report when you don't seem to have read it yourself. You failed to see that in that audit report the accountants explicitly stated that they had received copies of the bank statements from the banks.
If you are looking for suspicious activity and ignore the facts in front of you then you can convince yourself of whatever you want.

From the Tether website:

Since April 18, 2017, all incoming international wires to Tether have been blocked and refused by our Taiwanese banks.  As such, we do not expect the supply of tethers to increase substantially until these constraints have been lifted.

This is directly from a Tether announcement. They lost their banking services in Taiwan around the same time that Bitfinex was dropped by Wells Fargo.
What an interesting coincidence!

No, they didn’t lose their banking services in Tawain, their bank stopped accepting international wires. You also probably didn't read the very next sentence in the same statement.

For customers with bank accounts in Taiwan, we are currently experiencing no difficulties or delays in funds transfers in USD, with deposits and withdrawals functioning as expected.

Do you not think that both large institutional investors and wealthy individuals would have access to banking facilities in Taiwan or be more than capable of using a Taiwanese intermediary bank?

Come on @TheQuin, you can call me a conspiracy theorist all day, but some of these events and observations are simply too suspicious.

Until you come up with some evidence rather than things that you think look suspicious because you ignored part of the information right in front of you, I will.